The Rings of Hesaurun Read online

  The big man had just started gnawing on the bacon when Chad Evers, assistant to the mayor, slid into the bench across from him. The aspiring politician was almost as tall as Stone but rail-thin and with a choirboy’s complexion. His face had a strange asymmetry to it as though it had been punched one too many times—that being the only thing preventing him from being girlishly handsome.

  “I’ve got a job for you,” Evers said as he pulled off his hat, glancing around the diner suspiciously as if he was afraid of being seen.

  “Want some food?” asked Stone through a mouthful of bacon.

  “No,” said Evers.

  “Rather wait ‘till you can get bread pudding and tea?” asked Stone, grinning widely.

  “Up yours, Stone,” Evers responded irritably. Stone chuckled. He enjoyed needling the man, viewing him as a prissy paper-pusher who was pathetically easy to aggravate. He watched with disdain as Evers ordered tea and pastries with an air of insolence, beckoning the indifferent waiter (as Stone noted with amusement), “Oh sir!” What was the matter with Evers? Didn’t he know the place was a hash-house?

  “Well?” demanded Evers, with the hot cup of hot tea in his long pale hands.

  Stone continued eating in silence while Evers bristled.

  “Depends. I’m a busy man.”

  No doubt, busy breaking legs thought Evers, knowing better than to say so outright to the enormous man. Stone had a dangerous edge to his demeanor and a wellearned reputation for violence. Definitely not one to provoke, he reminded himself.

  Evers fished in his overcoat pocket, brought out an envelope, then slid it across the table. Stone looked at it blankly as if a dead rat had just landed on his breakfast. “Read it.”

  “Later,” Stone grumbled without looking up from his plate.

  “Alright. Call me then.” Assuming the conversation was over, Evers got up and left, leaving Stone to finish his meal.

  When he was certain Evers was gone, Stone opened the envelope and studied the letter, along with a handwritten note authored by Evers. After deciphering the first few sentences, he shoved both documents in his pocket, deciding to read them later.

  Back at his room, Stone flipped on the overhead light, pulled the envelope out of his pocket, tossed it on the kitchen table, and then started a pot of coffee. The Vista Hotel suite was dated and poorly maintained. The room included a kitchenette, a small table with two chairs that didn’t match, a private bathroom, and a bedroom that doubled as the living area. The only addition to the bed was a stuffed chair and side table and a brown radio sitting atop it. The double-hung pane permitted just enough filtered light through the grime to be considered a window.

  After pouring himself a cup of coffee, Stone grabbed the envelope, then sank into the overstuffed chair with a grunt. While sipping the hot coffee, Stone contemplated his meeting with Chad Evers and the significance of the message. He unfolded the unsigned typewritten letter dated November 20, 1938, then read it.

  Dear Mayor Langley, I was at the Olympic Hotel last Saturday night, in the Garden Room for dinner. I saw you there with that woman. I also saw where you went with her afterward. Your wife is not going to like learning about this. Wire ten-thousand dollars to the following account to prevent that from happening. You have until 5 PM Friday when the banks close.

  Western Union account: 59924006

  Stone folded the letter back inside the envelope, grinned, then eyed his watch; it was 6:57 Monday morning, which told him Evers received the letter sometime during the weekend, or it was a holdover from Friday.

  Politicians don’t work before 9 AM or on weekends, he thought. Friday fit best as the day the letter was delivered. But if that’s true, why didn’t Evers call sooner? He didn’t call, so I was either the first choice or the last. Not that I care either way, but if I was the last choice, that means my price just went up. I smell money, so I’m going to gamble on me being the last choice.

  According to Evers’ note accompanying the demand letter, he had a solid tip on the woman’s identity seen with the mayor. Evers wanted him to tail the woman to see if he could catch her with Langley. He also wanted a photograph of them together. But the offer of one-thousand dollars per week, plus expenses, was hard for him to believe and impossible to pass on.

  Evers assured him Langley’s opponents would love to have this little tidbit to use against him come election time. Once he had the woman’s identity and pictures as proof, his instructions were to take that information directly to Evers, no one else. He also claimed that he intended to turn it over to the mayor to protect him from a political scandal. However, Stone knew better; he didn’t believe a word of it.

  I smell a rat , Stone thought. None of it makes any sense for two simple reasons. First, all it would take to identify the Western Union account owner is ten minutes and a fifty-dollar bill to grease a palm down at the Western Union office. And two, one-thousand dollars a week is downright silly; far too much money for such a mundane task. I would have done the job for a hundred bucks and laughed all the way to the bank!

  Turning his eyes to the window, Stone stared outside, his mind still rambling. This doesn’t add up! Why spend days or weeks following some dame around town hoping to get a photo of her and the mayor together when there are faster, easier ways to get the job done? Then he realized if he was able to milk the job for three weeks, he could buy a house in Ballard with that much money.

  Stone knew Evers as a climber, one who would stop at nothing to move a rung up the political ladder. In Stone’s mind, everything Evers said was suspect. He had something up his sleeve Stone knew it; he just didn’t know what. Yet.

  After pouring himself another cup of coffee, he paced the room, trying to work the problem out in his mind. The one thing he could rely on was his gut, and it was telling him there was something fishy about the entire story.

  As a debt collector, the nature of people was something Stone was intimately familiar with. In his experience, when someone threw a lot of money around carelessly, there was nothing careless about it. There was always a motive in play. Money was hard to come by, so only people who didn’t work for it wasted it. As he continued pacing, the pieces of the puzzle began to come together for him.

  Evers must be planning to use the pictures and information to advance his own political career. The mayor would be just another casualty of his climb up the political ladder. By Stone’s way of thinking, there could be no other reason. Nothing else made sense.

  Essentially Chad Evers was willing to pay him an obscene amount of money for what boiled down to be a photograph of a woman. Moreover, he doubted the woman’s identification, if there ever was one in the first place. If she existed, Evers must already know who she is. Stone considered that to be a matter of fact. He also knew that if he was wrong, he must still be very close to the truth. So he moved on to the next point, the money.

  It appeared to him Evers had so much money he was in a hurry to waste it— big hurry. If that was true, Stone reasoned, Evers must not have worked for it, which meant he either inherited the money, won a lottery, or stole it. Inheriting a sum large enough not to care how it was spent seemed like a long shot. He gave that possibility a low likelihood. Winning a lottery would have had everyone talking about it. If that were true, he would have heard about it, but he hadn’t.

  Chad Evers must have stolen his wealth, Stone thought to himself. But where did the money come from? And how much was there? Hell, if I could find Evers’ stash of cash and get my hands on it, I might be able to do a whole lot better than a house in Ballard, he concluded, smiling at the thought. Yes, lightening that prissy politician’s pocket has a definite appeal.

  Stone sucked in air, then roared with laughter. It was decided; he would accept the job offer but planned to do it his way. Tailing his boss would be a lot more fun than following the Mayor’s skirt around town. This way, Evers would be paying him for following himself. Stone loved the idea, chuckling at the irony. It was a good plan. With the decis
ion made, he picked up the phone and dialed Evers’ office.

  “City Hall, how can I direct your call?” a switchboard operator asked mechanically.

  “Give me Chad Evers’ office,” he demanded. “One moment, please.”

  Stone did not like waiting, and if the operator hadn’t

  put the call on hold so abruptly, he would have told her so. “One moment please,” was the wrong thing to say to a man as impatient as him. It was against his nature to be forced to wait for anything. It wasn’t long before he started counting the moments while staring at his watch. He hated waiting, and hated time wasted. He also hated time-wasters, and this lady was being paid to waste his time. When someone finally picked up the line again, more than a dozen moments had already been wasted, and that made him cross.

  “Mister Evers Office,” a female voice announced. “Give me Chad Evers.”

  “Who may I say is calling, please?”

  “E.S. Stone!” he growled.

  “Let me see if he is in. Please hold.”

  Damn! Stone barked, glancing at his watch again.

  His patience was being tested to the limit. Time was being needlessly wasted. He hated that. “The line is busy, would you like to hold or leave a message?”

  Stone rolled his eyes, fatigued with having to jump through so many hoops to get that twerp Evers on the phone.

  “Tell him Stone will be in his office in twenty minutes sharp,” he snarled, then slammed the phone down with a bang. At least I had that small pleasure, he thought.

  With no time to spare, he grabbed his coat and hat, slammed the door, and ran down the stairs. Once at the curb, he hailed a cab, then directed the driver to take him to Seattle City Hall on 4th Avenue.

  Experience told him his destination was ten minutes from the Vista Hotel by cab. As the driver reached City Hall, Stone checked his watch and was relieved to see he had six minutes left. Perfect. He intended to teach that lady a lesson in time management by walking through the door to Evers’ office precisely when he said he would be there. He liked people to know he was punctual and intended to prove it by bursting into the office door at straight-up twenty minutes after he had hung up the phone.

  Wham! Stone threw the door open so hard it ricocheted off the wall, nearly torn from its hinges. At nearly seven feet tall, the ceiling was too low for the big man. As he opened the door, he had to duck to keep from hitting his head on the door frame, which he didn’t like. Once inside, his scalp only cleared the ceiling tiles by a few inches, making it uncomfortably close. He didn’t like that either. By the time Stone realized the waiting room barred entry from the main office, he was fuming. He hated waiting rooms, and he hated waiting.

  However, he didn’t expect to find direct entry to Chad Evers’ office regulated by the smartly-dressed brunette blocking his way. The nameplate on her large oak desk announced her as Mrs. Dreyer. The elegant lobby featured stylish carpet, opposing brown leather couches, end tables with lamps surrounded by smoked glass walls. A glass door provided entry into the rest of the suite— which was obstructed by Mrs. Dreyer. Stone didn’t like fancy lobbies, and he didn’t like Mrs. Dreyer either.

  Stone stomped toward the woman like he intended to go right over her desk and through her. Only when her desk impeded his forward momentum did he stop. Then, leaning forward, he glared silently into her face for a long moment. Not to be intimidated, Mrs. Dreyer locked eyes with the burly intruder as she wordlessly waited for him to speak.

  “Stone to see Evers,” he finally growled, the veins in his neck bulging. The big man saw her as an unnecessary roadblock, which he did not respect. If he thought he could get away with it, he would have thrown her and her big desk aside to get through the door.

  “Do you have an appointment, Mr. Stone?” Mrs. Dreyer asked politely, fully aware he didn’t have one because she had answered his call twenty minutes earlier. The fact that precisely twenty minutes had transpired since then was not lost on her. She wouldn’t soon forget he’d slammed the phone down in her ear, nor how he tried to intimidate her by invading her personal space like an angry grizzly. In her opinion, no way declaring he would be there within twenty minutes qualified as an appointment.

  “Yes,” Stone stated gravely.

  “I’ll see if he is in—please be seated,” the resolute secretary responded. When the big man didn’t move, she silently but sternly pointed at one of the sofas indicating nothing would happen until he obeyed her. Finally conceding to her demand, Stone seated himself, although reluctantly.

  Once Stone was seated, Mrs. Dreyer rose from her desk, then disappeared behind the glass wall for several minutes, presumably to speak to her boss. When she reappeared, she sat quietly at her desk with her hands folded as if she were waiting for something. She wasn’t; this was her way of getting in a jab at the rude man.

  When Mrs. Dreyer felt like she had made her point, she politely announced, “Mr. Evers will see you now. He will escort you in momentarily.” Her tone dripped of polished insincerity that only years in government service could engender.

  Stone nodded, feeling his temperature rise. Seconds later, Chad Evers opened the door, visibly annoyed, then wordlessly waved Stone into the suite. Once inside, he led Stone into a spacious office with six matching oak desks occupied by his staff members. One by one, the office staff eyed the big man suspiciously as he stormed by.

  Stone followed Evers as they continued down a long hallway lined with offices and meeting rooms. Evers’ own office was at the end of the hall. The heavy oak door to the office was left open.

  The assistant mayor seated himself behind his desk with a grunt. Meanwhile, without an invitation, Stone proceeded to drag a heavy chair in front of Evers’ big desk then throw himself into it as if he owned it. Chad bristled at the impropriety.

  “What made you think you could come barging in here?” he snapped, wasting no time in telling the lumbering fool what he thought of the unwanted incursion into his world.

  Stone was furious at the insult but knew better than to respond.

  “And tell me,” Evers continued, “what made you think it would be a good idea for you to come here when I asked you to work secretly? Don’t you realize that coming here exposes you as being personally associated with me? Can’t you see that?”

  “I accept your offer,” Stone stated calmly as he settled into the chair.

  Suddenly Evers was bewildered. Perplexed, he considered the ramifications of hiring Stone before responding. He knew the man got results, which was good. But could he be controlled? That was what bothered him the most about the coarse, ill-mannered bully. Stone was well-known as a callous enforcer, a man not to be taken lightly. But wasn’t that why he offered him the job in the first place?

  “Alright,” Evers conceded after serious consideration. “But I want to put an agreement in writing, so there are no misunderstandings between us,” he said uneasily. The last thing Chad Evers wanted was a disagreement with a leg breaker, such as this rough-hewn character.

  “I’ll write something up, but we will change the description of the job so it cannot possibly be associated with our real goals. I need to protect this office and myself from reproach. How does that sound?”

  “Agreed, when can you have it?” Stone snapped with finality, his eyes glittering.

  Evers stared, suddenly having second thoughts about hiring a leg-breaker such as Egan Seamus Stone as he returned to his desk. “I want you to get to work immediately, so I’ll have it for you by the end of the day,” he said, then added, “I’ll call you when it’s ready. Marcia Dreyer, my secretary, whom I believe you’ve met, will have a package waiting for you on her desk today at 4 PM. We close at 5, so if you want to go to work tonight, you will want to be here before then.”

  Once said, Chad pushed a button on his desk, which buzzed in another office. Then he stood moving toward the door in a less-than-subtle indication he considered their meeting to be over, and it was time for his guest to leave. At the door he adde
d, “Don’t do anything until you have the agreement in hand. There will be a money order in it to get you started.”

  Stone remained seated, glowering defiantly as Chad held the door open for him. He regarded Evers as a self-important worm, but right or wrong this gig was too rich to miss, so he decided to play along.

  “Yes, sir,” Stone muttered mockingly, then rose from the chair. What he wanted to say was; You better sleep with the lights on, buddy. Stone noticed Chad recoil defensively as he passed by him at the door and counted it as a small victory.

  “And don’t call me,” Chad said. “Bill me, send me letters or telegrams, but don’t come here again without an invitation. If you do, I’ll call the police and have you jailed. If I want to speak to you, I’ll call you. Got it?”

  “Got it, boss-man,” Stone chuckled to himself, then followed Marsha Dreyer’s lead out of the office.

  As instructed, Stone returned to the assistant mayor’s office precisely at 4 PM, snatched the envelope from Marcia’s outstretched hand, then left without a word. Marcia breathed a sigh of relief the moment the door closed behind him. The truth was, the huge tough-looking man dressed in black had frightened her more than she cared to admit.

  Although Stone resented being forced to yield to Evers, he was pleased and a little excited as he opened the manila envelope. While sliding out the legal-size documents, a money order glided onto the tabletop in front of him. Studying it carefully, he saw two things about it that disturbed him.

  First was the name of the payee on the check. Just two people on the planet knew Stone’s full name: his mother in Ireland—if she was still alive, that is—and Stone himself. He traveled with his father by steamship to New York at a young age and west to California. There, his father worked as a logger. When he was fifteen, his father died in an accident, leaving him to fend for himself at a logging camp high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.